"I initiated a few projects of investigation which I more or less
traced from others. Received some replies and soon realized that the only
persons interested were as apathetic about the entire idea as I was.
But it still survives in some forms and ideas.

There was very little money at that time, and basically what we had to do
is steal food in order to eat. We would put on heavy winter coats. We
were looking like street people, except that we ironed our clothing which
all came from the Salvation Army. We would go to grocery stores and
buy a loaf of bread and hide various flat cans of food in our pockets.
Or we would boil huge amounts of rice and chicken liver.

One of the interesting concepts to come out of this - and 'concept' is
a word I only use because I spent all the others - was that of
severity, austerity and
particularly instantaneous severe reflexion syndrome in which
people are subjected to incredible horrific flashes of consciousness.

An anecdote to illustrate a typical day at
Peking Poolroom would be one
of the last days after the fire which I started in the kitchen and that
almost killed several people sleeping in the apartment. And the great
debate of course was whether we would put it out ourselves or call
the firemen. I am very surprised that we got away with that.
Zbigniew Brotgehirn and I got up at
one o'clock in the afternoon. We were invited to participate in a
performance Monty was giving this
evening. And we simply didn't think that we were ready to make any
sort of public display of any particular idea. So we did what we
usually did, purchase a bottle of Tequila and drink it on the back
terrace. We consumed the bottle very quickly and proceeded then
to buy and steal some bottles of wine and one bottle of Chartreux.
Later in the afternoon, the welfare officer came. We had
asked to receive welfare recently, and when this middle aged man
walked into this kitchen covered with clothes which just had been
the scene of a fire, with green garbage bags all over the place since
we didn't know on which day to put them out, it became very apparent
to him that he was in the most miserable part of the most miserable
part of the city.

After he left, we purchased some broken irons at the Salvation Army
and took Mein Kampf along with us and stole a
motorcycle. We were not in a condition to drive that motorcycle, but
I was driving it. I would come down on the street at ten or fifteen
miles an hour and Zbigniew would
attempt to jump on the back of the seat as I passed by. After
twelve or more unsuccessful attempts, we finally proceeded to go
downtown. He left, and we finally met just as the
performance was going to begin.

I have gone through half of the Chartreux bottle at that time and had
a simple desire to continue the violence of the day. We were allowed
to buy beer at special discount, and Monty
gave me ten dollars to buy twenty of them. Before I could finish a beer,
the performance began. And what happened from then on is more myth
than fact, so I don't think I bring up the facts."